Govt cuts down export duty of mineral concentrates

The Ministry of Finance has finally issued a new regulation providing a significant cut in the export duty of mineral concentrates for miners which have shown serious commitment in developing required domestic smelters, Bisnis Indonesia daily reported on Tuesday.

The paper said that the export duty has been cut down to 7.5 percent from the previous progressive rate of 20-60 percent. The rate could be further reduced depending on the progress of the smelter, and to as low as zero percent if miners have completed their smelters.

Miners which have put down the required smelter fund deposit with the government?s bank account are entitled to the 7.5 percent export duty. One of such miners is PT Freeport Indonesia, which has been unable to export its copper concentrates since January of this year following the introduction of a tighter export requirements including a punitive 25 percent export duty on export concentrate for 2014.

Minister of Finance Chatib Basri said that the lower export duty was expected to resume mineral concentrates export, and thus help increase revenue and improves the country?s trade balance.

?The fact is that when the export duty was set at 25 percent (for copper concentrates), there?s no revenue for the state as no miners were willing to make export,? Chatib said.(*)